I have added two new queries to this month’s version, to try to collect some more hardware information about the database server. I specifically wanted to find out more information about the processor type from T-SQL, since many DBAs don’t have direct access to their database server to run a tool like CPU-Z.

Here are the two new queries:

-- Get System Manufacturer and model number from
-- SQL Server Error log. This query might take a few seconds
-- if you have not recycled your error log recently
EXEC xp_readerrorlog 0,1,"Manufacturer";
-- Get processor description from Windows Registry
-- (Uncomment query to make it work)
--EXEC xp_instance_regread
--'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
--'HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor',
--'ProcessorNameString';

If we had a processor description column in the sys.dm_os_sys_info DMV, it would be a lot easier to collect this type of information. I have filed a Connect item to get this added to SQL Server Denali. If you agree that this is important, please vote it up!

As always, you will need VIEW SERVER STATE permission to run many of these queries. You should run each query one at a time (after reading my notes for each one), rather than running the entire batch. That way, you can study the results, and see how long each query takes to complete in your environment.

Hey Glenn thanks for another update. I find your queries extremely helpful – all in one place. Very nice.

I see BROKER_EVENTHANDLER in a lot of my servers and according to the Microsoft blog below it’s actually supposed to be a high wait time because it’s counting the amount of time it has been waiting to do something. Am I interpreting this one correctly – and if so, shouldn’t it be excluded since a high wait time for that is actually good?